Monthly Volunteer Spotlight: December 2016 Edition

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Old Town Clinic’s Wellness Program offers a variety of classes and activities
to further patient care, healing, and connectedness within the Central City Concern community. This month we wanted to emphasize the outstanding work
of Jeff Beers, an art therapy volunteer who Program Manager Moira Ryan refers to as “a co-conspirator toward the Wellness Program’s aim of encouraging
self-acceptance while building community.”

In fact, when approached about Jeff’s wonderful service being the spotlight for December, Moira jumped at the opportunity to provide a glance into her
work and experience with Jeff:

San Francisco-based artist Jeff Beers has years of experience working with diverse populations as an arts educator. Jeff joined us in July and has been a fantastic peer volunteer and co-facilitator of several Wellness groups. In our Art for Everybody and Art Journaling groups, he’s brought a more tactile experience of art-making as we practice trying out working with oils, inks, powder tempera, collage, collagraphy, and even found items! He draws upon his experience as a self-taught artist and encourages mistake-making, regularly reminding folks that we have permission to practice not being perfect here. Additionally, drawing from his experience as a certified instructor of Thai Massage, he’s developed curricula for a group we’re calling Eastern Techniques for Health and Longevity. In that group, we draw on trauma-informed somatic experiencing precepts as we explore tapping, brushing, acupressure, stretching, and other acts of gentle self-love.

With Moira’s enlightening recap of Jeff’s involvement, read below to hear his own words about how he utilizes personal experience with a desire to help
others through one of his greatest passions—art!

• • •

Name and Volunteer Position: My
name is Jeff Beers and my volunteer positions are for Art for Everybody on Mondays, and then on Wednesdays we do table-top Games and then I lead a
group in Eastern Techniques for Health. On Thursdays I do ceramics and the art journaling as well.

So a pretty wide array of activities. What’s your background?My background is in art for the most part; that’s what I do. Every year I choose an organization I want to volunteer for. Money comes very low on my
priorities so I feel like it’s a way I can give back since I can’t give back monetarily. So I just find places that I really believe in and then volunteer.
I get to pay it back and do what I love.

How have you been able to use those skill sets to connect specifically with those that CCC serves?Well, I really like the clients. I have a lot of admiration for them because I know that they’re struggling with one thing or another and I just admire
their efforts to reach out for help and be there. A lot of the groups, they vary in sizes, but it’s just cool to see the people regularly and to be
a part of their lives. And just to contribute whatever I can, which would be a positive attitude, and some skill sets, but mostly just showing these
people my admiration for what they’re doing.

And
I want to make it worth their time too. I always feel conscious that if people make the effort to be in the class or in the group it should be worth
their while. I keep that in mind and try to get a lot of feedback from the people and just tune-in to what they’re interested in; that’s been a lot
of fun.

Have you had any cool projects that have been more successful or well-received that stick out?Yeah! In Art for Everybody on Mondays I’ve been having a lot of fun introducing different techniques to the clients and they’re usually always interested
in at least trying it out which is great. They find their voice and the right materials they want to work with. Then all of a sudden they become artists.
Before they were always saying, “I’m not an artist, I’m not an artist,” and that’s hard for me to hear, so I like to bring them forward and show them
what they can find in themselves.

And then the Eastern Techniques Class, that’s been a blast. Although it takes more preparation for me to package and present all of these techniques I’ve
learned through the years, it’s been a lot of fun. I ask the clients for a lot of feedback and they’re usually pretty forthright about just coming
up with critiques so it’s been fun to constantly let that group grow in that way.

Do you feel like the activities are a good fit for CCC and the Wellness Program?Oh, very much so. Your guys’ program is just fantastic. When I was a client I just was blown away by all of the services that were provided under one
roof so people didn’t have to go to different parts of the city to receive different services. I thought that was great. Of all of the private insurances
I’ve had in the past this was easily, no contest, the most fantastic clinic I’ve ever seen. And so, it was an easy choice to volunteer.

I mean you even have volunteers who work at Old Town Clinic cleaning up things, setting up different things, I think it’s great. I think your program should
be like a model for most of the clinics in the United States. It’s a great example of what you can do.

And lastly Jeff: if somebody were on the fence about volunteering with Central City Concern or about getting involved, would you have any advice or words of wisdom for them?For me, I’ve always had a respect for people no matter what their situation is and I want them to know that. I think it’s a good thing for volunteers
to show their genuine respect or admiration and not feel that it’s something out of obligatory need. I’m blown away by some of the people CCC serves
and what their stories are that they share. So I think for volunteers in general that would be the most important thing.

And I think that anybody that would find interest or have the time to volunteer at CCC should never have to have any doubt about the value of what they’re
bringing.